The Trap (29 page)

I wonder what he's thinking as he walks ahead of me, feeling my presence behind him. The fact that I'm here means that I've seen through him, that it's not yet over for him, that it's going into the next round.

He's making an effort to appear calm. But his thoughts must be going haywire. We walk along a corridor hung with large-format grainy black-and-white photographs. The sea at night, the back of a woman's curly head, a snake shedding its skin, the Milky Way, a black orchid and the astute-looking face of a fox accompany me on my way. Then we climb a short flight of free-standing stairs to Lenzen's living room.

A designer lamp in metal and Perspex bathes the room in cool light. There is no television. There are no bookshelves, no plants. Just leather, glass and concrete. Designer furniture, two leather armchairs, a glass table and abstract art in blue and black. A faint smell of cold smoke hangs in the air. There is an adjoining open-plan kitchen. The room leads onto a balcony that is shrouded in darkness.

‘Please,' Lenzen says. He indicates an armchair. ‘Sit down.'

‘You should be aware that other people know I'm here,' I say.

It is my only trump.

‘If I don't get in touch with them, they'll come and look for me.'

Lenzen's cold eyes narrow. He nods ponderously.

I take a seat. Lenzen sits down opposite me on the other armchair. We are separated only by the coffee table.

‘Would you like a drink?' Lenzen asks.

He seems confident that I am unarmed. Presumably because he sank my gun in Lake Starnberg.

‘No, thanks.'

I won't let myself be distracted—not this time.

‘You aren't surprised to see me,' I say.

‘Not really.'

‘How did you know I'd come?'

‘I guessed you weren't anything like as ill as you made out,' he says.

He shakes a cigarette out of a packet that's lying on the coffee table and lights up.

‘Would you like one too?' he asks.

‘I don't actually smoke,' I say.

‘But the main character in your book—she smokes,' says Lenzen and places a cigarette on the coffee table between us, along with his lighter.

I nod, take the cigarette, light up. We smoke in silence. A cigarette-long grace period (it seems we're both thinking the same) before we bring this to an end. I smoke mine down to the last millimetre before stubbing it out, steeling myself for the answers to my questions.

I don't know why, but I have the feeling that Lenzen is going to give them to me now that the time for games is over.

‘Tell me the truth,' I say.

Lenzen doesn't look at me; he's staring at an indeterminate spot on the floor.

‘Where were you on 23 August 2002?'

‘You know where I was.'

He lifts his gaze. We look each other in the eyes, like all those years ago. Of course I know where he was. How could I ever have doubted it?

‘How did you know Anna Michaelis?'

‘Are we really going to carry on like this? With these stupid questions?'

I swallow. ‘You knew Anna,' I say.

Lenzen lets out a deep rumble—his mirthless version of a laugh. ‘I loved Anna,' he says. ‘But did I “know” her? To be perfectly honest, I have no idea. Probably not.'

He snorts, grimaces, then throws back his head and lets it circle, making his vertebrae click. He lights another cigarette. His fingers are trembling. Only slightly. I try to digest his words.

I hear Julian's voice in my head: ‘A crime of passion. So much anger, so many knife wounds, always point to a crime of passion.' And my reply: ‘But Anna wasn't in a relationship. I'd have known.'

Oh, Linda.

‘You were…' I find it hard to say it, as if it were incredibly lewd. ‘You were in a relationship with my sister?'

Lenzen nods. I think of the small, flat smartphone, taped to my chest in a makeshift fashion and now recording everything, and I wish he'd reply. But he shows no sign of doing so. Only sits and smokes. Still he avoids looking me in the eye. And I realise that things have changed. Now
he's
the one who can no longer endure
my
gaze.

‘May I ask you a question?' I begin.

‘That's what you're here for,' says Lenzen.

‘Why did you come to my house?'

Lenzen stares into space. ‘You can't imagine what it was like,' he says.

I twist my mouth wryly.

‘The call to my editor: a famous author wanting to be interviewed by me. I didn't know what was going on. I was vaguely familiar with the name Linda Conrads from the cultural pages, but apart from that it meant nothing to me.'

Lenzen shakes his head.

‘The literary editor was offended at being ignored. He wanted to interview you himself, of course. I didn't care. I was looking forward to the interview.'

Lenzen gives a bitter laugh. He takes a nervous drag on his cigarette and carries on talking.

‘Ah well. Our trainee arranged a date for the interview and I got an advance copy of the book to prepare myself.'

I'm quivering.

‘So I read it. You know, the way you read something you have to read for work. Whenever I could snatch the time: on the train, on the escalator, a few pages in bed before going to sleep. I skipped a lot. I don't much rate crime novels—the world is brutal enough as it is; I can do without books full of…'

He realises how wrong that sounds coming from him and breaks off.

‘I didn't notice,' he says at length. ‘Until the chapter where it happens, I didn't notice.'

I despise him for avoiding the word ‘murder'. He says nothing for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

‘When I read that chapter… It was funny. I didn't understand at first. I expect my brain didn't want to understand and put it off for as long as it could. The setting seemed familiar to me, in an unpleasant, disturbing way. Like something I might have seen in a film once—completely unreal. I was on the train at the time. When I realised—when it became clear to me what I'd read—it was…funny. It's odd, when you suddenly remember something you'd repressed. At first I wanted to put the book down and think of something else—forget all about it. But the first domino had fallen and, one by one, the memories were coming back. Then I got bloody furious.'

He looks at me. His eyes scare me.

‘I had tried so hard to forget that night. So hard! And I had almost succeeded. I…you know…you live. You work. You don't sit around thinking about the past. At least, not all the time.'

He loses the thread, buries his head in his hands, plunges into thought, surfaces again and forces himself to carry on talking.

‘I haven't been walking around all day every day for twelve years thinking to myself that I've killed somebody. I…'

He's said it. My hands are trembling so much I have to press them flat on my thighs to keep them still. He's said it! He said that he killed somebody.

Lenzen breathes in and out.

‘But I did. I did. And the book reminded me that I had. I had almost forgotten. Almost.'

In stunned shock, I watch Lenzen bury his head in his hands once more, chastened and self-pitying. Then he straightens up again. I don't know why, but he seems to have made up his mind to answer all my questions. Maybe because he thinks no one would believe me anyway. Or because it does him good to talk. Or maybe because he made up his mind a long time ago that he wasn't going to give me the opportunity to tell anyone.

No. He can't do that! He wouldn't get away with that and he knows it.

‘Once I'd realised what the book was about, I did some research into you. It didn't take me ten minutes to find out that you were Anna's sister.'

He looks at me when he says Anna's name, as if he were searching for her features in my face.

‘I had to come,' Lenzen says simply.

‘You wanted to know what evidence I had against you,' I say.

‘I didn't think you had any evidence against me. If you had, you'd have called the police. But I couldn't be sure.'

He laughs his mirthless laugh.

‘A nice little trap,' he says.

‘You didn't come unprepared.'

‘Of course I didn't. I have everything to lose—really, everything.'

I sense the threat contained in these words. I endure it. I wonder whether he'd reply if I asked him what happened that night.

‘Where was the music coming from?' I ask instead.

He knows at once what I mean.

‘The first time, it came from a small mobile device in the photographer's bag. The second time, from my other phone—the one not on the table.'

I should be getting worried that he's so willing to answer all my questions, but I keep going.

‘How did you get the photographer to play along?'

Lenzen raises the corner of his mouth, as if he'd like to smile but has forgotten how.

‘He owed me a favour. A big favour. I sold him the whole thing as a harmless prank—the crazy author who never leaves the house freaks out a bit and we get a great story. Don't think too badly of him. He wasn't at all keen. But he had no choice in the end.'

I remember the frosty atmosphere between Lenzen and the photographer.

‘Why did you do it in the first place?' I ask. ‘Why the whole show?'

Lenzen sighs and stares at the floor. He looks like a magician whose marked cards have just fallen out of his sleeve in full view of the audience.

‘I had to play safe. So that you wouldn't go to the police and send them after me.'

I see. Sowing doubt in my mind was a sure-fire way of getting me to keep silent—the nutty writer who never leaves the house—lonely, eccentric, unstable, almost completely cut off from society. I look at Lenzen, this grave, quiet man. No wonder I was taken in. Certain things I might have expected of him—lies, violence, denial at all costs, maybe even an attempt to kill me. But I'd never imagined him capable of this great show—walk-on parts and props and musical numbers and all. Masterly. Because who'd suss a thing like that? And who'd believe me if I told them?

‘You tried to make me think I'd murdered my own sister,' I say, spitting out the words.

Lenzen ignores me.

‘How did you know that I'd fall for it? How did you know that Anna and I didn't always…'

I falter. The thought is incredibly painful.

‘Anna told you about me,' I say.

Lenzen nods. It's like a punch in the stomach.

‘What did she say?'

‘That you'd always quarrelled, even as children—like fire and water, the two of you. That she thought you were selfish and was sick of your arty airs… That you had called her a smart alec and—excuse me—a manipulative little slag.'

My mouth feels horribly dry.

‘But even if Anna hadn't told me all that,' Lenzen adds, ‘what sisters don't hate each other, at least every now and then? And what survivor doesn't feel pangs of guilt?'

He shrugs, as if to say it was almost too easy.

We're silent for a moment. I try to put my thoughts in order and Lenzen wreathes himself in cigarette smoke.

Now I have to ask the question. I've been putting it off, because once he's answered it, everything will have been said and I don't know what will happen next.

‘What happened that night?' I ask.

Lenzen smokes and says nothing. He's silent for so long I'm afraid he'll never answer. Then he stubs out his cigarette and looks at me.

‘August 2002,' he says. ‘God, it's a long time ago. Another life.'

I try not to nod. That summer twelve years ago. Anna still alive. Me engaged. Suddenly successful. Suddenly rich. My third book a bestseller. My parents' silver wedding anniversary. The summer Ina and Björn got married—the party by the lake where we got drunk and went skinny-dipping with the newlyweds. Another life.

Lenzen takes a deep breath. My mobile, still in record mode, burns on my skin.

‘Anna and I, we'd been…we'd known each other for about a year. I'd just become a father, and I'd just been made editor-in-chief. I had the feeling that I was somebody. There were envious people, sure—people who claimed I'd only got the job because I'd married into the family who owned the company. Voices who thought I was only after my wife's money and clout. But I knew that wasn't true. I was good at my job. And I loved my wife. I had found my niche in life. But then I go and fall head over heels with this young girl. It's ridiculous, but these things happen. We kept our relationship secret, of course. She thought it was fun to begin with, and kind of exciting—forbidden love. I thought it was dangerous right from the start. A few times her boyfriend almost caught us. He knew something was up and he dumped her. She didn't care. But it frightened me, because I was afraid we'd be found out. Only I couldn't give her up. Not at first.'

He shakes his head.

‘Idiotic, completely idiotic. And so banal. Such a cliché. Because, of course, the girl wants me to herself at some point—and, of course, I don't want to leave my young family. We row. Again and again. In the end, I tell her it's over, that we're not going to see each other any more. But the girl's used to getting her own way. She threatens me. She's suddenly changed beyond all recognition, says things that should never be said to anyone.

‘“What if I go to your wife? Do you think she'd like to hear that you're here with me while she's sitting at home on her own, breastfeeding your ugly baby with her saggy tits?”

‘I tell her to be quiet—that she knows nothing about my wife, about my marriage. But she isn't quiet.

‘“I know all about your marriage, my love. I know that your dear father-in-law will kick your useless arse out of the door when he finds out that you're cheating on his spoilt little girl. Do you really think you got that job because you're so competent? Look at you! Standing there as if you were about to start blubbering, you ridiculous loser! I mean, really, you're not my idea of leadership material.”